


Something I Can Hold On To

by auroreanrave



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: BAMF Danielle, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Female Character of Color, Female Friendship, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Pack Building, True Alpha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-14
Updated: 2013-11-14
Packaged: 2018-01-01 13:43:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1044643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auroreanrave/pseuds/auroreanrave
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danielle gets clued up on the supernatural, joins the pack without realising it, and saves the day a few times.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something I Can Hold On To

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place post-Season 3A. Focused around the minor recurring character of Danielle, played by competition winner Shantal Rhodes (who proved to be such a hit she was invited back and her role expanded somewhat), and who I personally think would be a boon to the pack in the future.
> 
> The title comes from 'Something New', by Girls Aloud, which is probably my favourite song of 2012, because I have a pop heart the size of a continent. Enjoy!

So. Turns out that when you're driving along from the grocery store, it's entirely possible to get involved in the world of the supernatural - something Danielle finds out when she accidentally rams her car into a rogue elemental entity, followed moments later by Stiles, Lydia and the other members of their weird social circle, Stiles throwing some weird ash on it and Allison firing an arrow from a longbow at it.

Huh.

Surprisingly, she's had worse days. Also, magic and wolves and shit in Beacon Hills, so, _wow_. She kind of knew, she thinks.

Scott and Stiles and Lydia take her to one side once they're done and explain the situation to her as the body of the elemental is being disposed of by Allison and Chris and when the sheriff has swayed attention away. Danielle takes it well, she thinks, and when Scott tells her that the thing that killed Heather is dead, she's happy.

Danielle drives home and takes her make-up off and drinks until she should know better and then falls into a deep, dreamless sleep of gods and monsters.

* * *

Over the next few weeks, despite her best efforts to channel her energies into school, into finishing up her high school career and getting out of this freaky-as-hell town, she finds herself getting more and more involved the shenanigans of Scott and his friends.

One night at a house party, Lydia shows up, all pale and worried underneath her Balenciaga coat and expensive make up, and tells her to stay safe.

Not ten minutes later, lights begin flickering and there's screaming from the bedrooms upstairs. Danielle puts down her drink, sets off the fire alarm in the empty kitchen (which, weird, when has a kitchen ever been empty during a party except for during a supernatural crisis), using a rolled up magazine and a match, and waits for Scott and Stiles to show up outside, hand curled around her taser.

Turns out it's some kind of South American demon that feasts on couples in the disguise of a hot woman and Danielle listens to Stiles' explanation of it while Isaac and that Hale guy and Scott race around the back of the house. Allison and Isaac track it down to the forest and everyone follows. Danielle tags along because it's the weekend and she's finished her English paper already and the quickening in her blood, the tang of adrenaline, is too much not to listen to.

Deep in the Beacon Hills woods, the demon - a _tunda_ , Danielle hears Stiles consider - is ensnared in a trap and soon it's being surrounded by mountain ash and purified salt and Stiles is chanting and soon there's a naked young woman emerging. Frightened and fearful and very much human.

"We try to save everyone we can." Scott tells her an hour or so later over pancakes. He and Stiles and Allison and Lydia and Isaac are sitting around in a diner, dawn's first light creeping over the hills. "That's kind of our code."

Danielle nods and sips her coffee. "So, how often does this happen?"

Stiles snorts around a mouthful of pie - Lydia shuffles his plate further away to avoid the spray of crumbs, wrinkling her nose and picking at her low-fat blueberry muffin. "More than we want, that's for damn sure." Allison nods sadly and Danielle consoles herself with a swirl of maple syrup on her plate.

* * *

Next time, she's in the library, after school and alone, researching a paper on the important industries in East African countries and pretending that there's not a metallic sinking feeling in her stomach with every passing moment.

The next moment, the entire wall caves in and crumbles under the force of a massive creature ploughing its way through, scattering books and computers like confetti. Danielle barely has time to duck beneath her desk before a chunk of shelving cuts across where her neck had been two seconds ago.

The creature is ten foot tall, a snarling cross between a biped monkey and a scorpion, long stinger tail swinging around and slamming into walls as it roars on its six - maybe arachnid, she thinks - hairy legs. Danielle reaches across to her bag, grabs her phone and calls Scott as fast as she can.

Seconds later, Scott, Isaac, Aiden and Ethan barrel into the room, all fanged out, Stiles and Allison hot on their heels and they scatter into a half-practised, half-instinctual formation. The stinger sends Isaac crashing through what was the sciences shelves and Ms Morrell - which wow, Danielle _really_ should have seen that one coming - ducked another blow, armed with a sword.

Scott spins in the air, claws slicing as Aiden and Ethan pounce into the flank of the creature. An arrow grazes a mandible and Stiles barely gets yanked out of the way by Allison as she notches another arrow.

Ms Morrell swipes with her sword, getting in a quick slash, but a claw rakes across her belly and her sword goes flying. Lands in Danielle's hand, like it was meant to be there. Danielle pushes herself to her feet, heart in her stomach and fear being pushed at the edges of her mind.

She is braver than this thing and stronger, she prays. Adrenaline surges in her belly. She _knows_.

Danielle pushes herself forward, ducks a crash of claws and a flying body. The creature turns to her, snarls. And Danielle rams the sword home through the thing's fucking _head_.

There's a sickening, rattling gargle of foul breath and though her eyes are shut tight, she can feel viscera and blood drenching her forearms, her wrists and hands soaked with something hot and wet and full of what used to be life. she wants to throw up badly, but keeps pushing, breathing through her nose.

A hand at her wrist pulls her back and she opens her eyes to see Scott. wide-eyed and steady and _proud_ , like she's somehow accomplished something.

"It's okay. Take a step back now." His voice is warm and steady across her mind as he pulls the sword from the creature's head with a wet pop. Danielle looks around. Every werewolf in the vicinity is looking at her, sort of bemused and sort of shocked.

"Okay," Danielle manages, looking down at her arms. Her sleeves are slick with a black ooze she can deduce is demon blood and which stinks to high heaven. "First things first, someone get me to your best dry cleaner. This shit looks like the opposite of dry-clean-friendly."

* * *

That night is spent at a 'sleepover' at Lydia's where she, Stiles and Lydia - Stiles is included because he's the investigator and because Lydia's mom took one look at Aiden and realised Stiles is not Lydia's man on the side - spend the night researching the beast and comparing notes. Allison is busy with her dad, tracking patterns or something, so Lydia decides Danielle is provide perfect company. Whatever.

Danielle might not be a practically-certified genius like Lydia or an instinctual investigator like Stiles, but she knows her history and her Google-fu is second to none except Danny (and he's more of a hacker really) so she doesn't feel at odds at all.

Lydia puts her shirt in fancy detergent and it comes back smelling all clean and fresh, and when 3am rolls around, they've given up on the finer points of vapor-based weaponry, have moved past updating the gang's database on creatures and identifying the library destroyer's genus as something like an arachnid, and have moved onto the physical attributes of Chris Hemsworth. Danielle is more of an Idris Elba chick, but she doesn’t complain at all when they watch the latest _Thor_ movie on Stiles' laptop.

Danielle wakes up at 5:30 and looks out at the rising sun from Lydia's French windows and finally cries alone for Heather and the life she was going to lead and the bad world that took her too soon. Afterwards, she dresses and steals a lipstick of Lydia’s and makes herself and Lydia and Stiles pancakes and fancy coffee and gets ready for school.

* * *

Before too long, there's an explosion at the school a few weeks later, the result of a fire elemental, a _mogwai_ from China that snuck over in the aura of some unlucky exchange student who's currently under Melissa's tender care at the hospital.

Danielle gets the call from Lydia when she's on the final sprints of a dreaded economics paper. She waits until Finstock leaves the room for a bathroom break and checks her messages with everyone else. The _mogwai_ has just attacked a group of lawyers on a corporate retreat in the woods and they need everyone there to help.

She looks over across the aisle and Allison is nodding at her, her phone in her hand and already tapping out a message to Lydia. Danielle finishes her summary, stacks her papers neatly and hands them to Finstock as he re-enters the classroom. "I've finished."

Allison is hot on her heels and they make their way to the parking lot to wait for everyone else. Danielle looks over at Allison - the calluses on her fingers, the half-haunted look in her eyes, and wonders if it's all worth it.

Stiles is the next out, tailed by Isaac and then Scott. Aiden and Ethan are next, Ethan texting Danny to make sure he stays in music practice for the whole hour. Danielle trades out her lipstick for a different shade from Lydia and catches Scott watching her lips as she applies it.

The _mogwai_ is surprisingly easily to defeat - turns out the new girl, Mei, has been trapped with the damn thing, and soon enough powders and potions release the curse and free the girl. Danielle helps Scott out with the distraction in the woods and spends at least four minutes helping haul his wounded, surprisingly hot ass out of a clearing and pulling thorns out of his side.

* * *

That night she finishes her science homework with help from Lydia on Skype and has more hot cocoa than she's ever had in her life and finds Scott outside her window when she can't sleep.

"What the hell are you doing, Scott?"

Scott smiles back at her, confident and somehow unsure. "I knew you were awake and I just wanted to make sure that you were okay. I get that it's hard to deal with sometimes."

Danielle wants to tell him to go away, to get back to his weird on/off thing with Allison, and let her sleep. But she knows that she can't sleep, too wired up on caffeine and adrenaline, and she's not cruel. Never has been, not even when she was bullied as a kid for being the wrong colour and too big and too smart. She turned that into sass and focus and a begrudging kindness that she really wants to keep in this dark world.

"Come inside. I have cocoa and Netflix." Scott grins and heads to her back door while Danielle closes the files on her computer and heads downstairs.

She and Scott spend the next few hours watching Adventure Time episodes back to back on her couch and Danielle spends her time watching Scott watch her when he thinks she's not looking. Werewolf or not, he's pretty unsubtle about girls. He loves Princess Bubblegum, she likes Marcelline.

At some point when they've exhausted seasons two to four and every bit of cocoa in her entire house, she turns and kisses Scott, hand sliding over the knob of his wrist, because her mind asks _why not?_ Scott kisses back, tentative and sweet, and not like the 'True Alpha' Lydia and Stiles have told her about, full capitals and everything.

* * *

The next day she spends with Lydia at the mall. They spar over Forever 21's lifespan, and Lydia makes sure Danielle gets some awesome shoes, and Danielle tells her about Scott. Lydia rolls her eyes, hands over her eyeshadow for a touch up, and tells her to go for it.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm all about Allison finding true love and all that crap, but she's happy with Isaac. Believe it or not, I also want Scott to be happy, since him being happy means less time for moping and more time for saving people’s lives. and he's been checking out your ass every time we have AP English together, so..."

Danielle manages a grin and finds a cool dress that meets Lydia's approval and thinks about her future and Beacon Hills and the fact that she woke up this morning with Scott curled around her like a big blanket, nose tucked into her neck and warm and safe.

* * *

That night she's just finished her algebra assignment, sent Derek a confirmation text for their latest training session (he's become obsessed with making sure everyone knows some self-defence and her taser always has to recharge; she's not ungrateful and can now punch Derek in the face hard enough that he seems weirdly impressed) and printed off her history midterm essay when she hears a tapping at her bedroom window.

Scott is down below, face grinning like he's looking at the sun rise as he looks at her. He has a box of fancy-looking cocoa tucked under one arm and the Adventure Time fifth season DVD box set in the other. He's wearing a tank top that shows off his arms and pecs and Danielle knows that it'll look good on her bedroom floor.

Danielle can see her future. She sees herself and Scott taking things quick, then slower. She can see him working under Deaton as a veterinarian and bringing an abandoned puppy home and Danielle loving it. She can see she and Lydia and Stiles and Danny at college and Derek and Stiles finally getting their shit together and getting together.

She can see long mornings in bed and rescuing people with the pack and researching during the long hours and helping Lydia with her banshee abilities and patching up Allison's wounds. She can see a horizon where Beacon Hills is safe and girls like Heather don't get killed. She can see Scott always looking out for her and being each other's number one and getting along with Melissa and having a happy, happy life with this handsome, crazy, goofy, big-hearted, sweet werewolf who wants to save the world.

All she has to do is take a leap of faith and say yes.

She's spent so long down the rabbit hole that she's wondering whether or not she's cut out for this. Then she remembers tackling the scorpion-thing in the library. That rush of adrenaline in her stomach. that knowledge. She’s got this.

"Come in." she grins. Scott’s face blooms with a smile like the sun.

She takes a leap and says yes and everything happens. Like she always knew it would.


End file.
